Brooklyn has fastest fire responses

When it comes to responding to fires, Brooklyn's bravest beat out firefighters in the other boroughs - sometimes by nearly a minute, FDNY records show.

"It's definitely good news for Brooklyn," said a Fire Department spokesman, adding response times vary greatly and depend on a number of factors such as traffic, weather and proximity of responding units to the fire scene.

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Response times to fire, medical and other emergencies decreased by about five seconds last year in Brooklyn compared with 2006.

On average it took firefighters four minutes and one second to arrive at house and building fires - 26 seconds faster than the city average and much faster than the average four minutes and 58 seconds it took firefighters in Queens to get to a fire.

The borough's 2006 response time was still not as low as it was from 2000 through 2002, when, on average, it took firefighters three minutes and 51 seconds to respond to a blaze.

Response time began to climb in 2003 when the city shuttered three Brooklyn firehouses - Engine 212, on Wythe Ave. in Greenpoint; Engine 278, on Seventh Ave. in Sunset Park, and Engine 204, on Degraw St. in Cobble Hill.

That year, response time climbed to three minutes and 56 seconds and peaked in 2005 at four minutes and 14 seconds. It began to come down in 2006, when it took firefighters four minutes and five seconds on average to get to a building fire.

"The faster they get there, the better," said Brigitte Veneski, 71, who was arrested for protesting the closing of the firehouse on Wythe Ave.

Although Veneski was glad to learn of the faster response times in Brooklyn, she was concerned about the void left by the closing of her neighborhood firehouse.

The Uniformed Firefighters Association president, Steve Cassidy, blasted the FDNY for releasing misleading statistics, saying response times only record how long it takes for a fire vehicle to pull up to the scene, not to actually start putting out a fire.

"When a family is trapped on the 40th floor of a building, they must be more concerned about when and how many firefighters get to the apartment door to begin rescuing them," he said.